Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on urological practice in emergency departments in Italy

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) and the disease it causes, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19), are causing a rapid and tragic health emergency worldwide. Italy was the first European country to experience a virus outbreak, starting on 21 February 2020. It resulted in a national quarantine, and the official lockdown of the country's non‐essential businesses and services began on 9 March 2020. Although several reports are available in the literature providing recommendations for the reorganization of clinical and surgical activities, to our knowledge, no data are available on the effects of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the outcomes of other medical conditions. For this reason, we aimed to evaluate the urological component of emergency department activities during the COVID‐19 pandemic, assessing the requests for urgent urological consultations in a network of academic and non‐academic hospitals in Italy.